May, 2009

Executive Summary

Competing demands for food, fuel and profit are driving the loss and degradation of the world’s
remaining forests. Governments, the private sector, and citizens are struggling to manage the conflicts
between these priorities. The Governance of Forests Initiative (GFI) seeks to bring widely accepted
principles of good governance to bear on the challenges of sustaining forests in developing countries.
GFI is a collaboration of the World Resources Institute, Imazon (Brazil) and the Instituto Centro de
Vida (Brazil).

The GFI indicator framework seeks to:

provide a common definition and conceptual framework for understanding the integrity of
institutions and processes that govern forests across different country contexts

provide a practical tool for civil society organizations to independently, systematically and
comprehensively diagnose strengths and weaknesses of forest governance in their countries, as a
basis to advocate for reform

define a set of measurable, reportable and verifiable indicators of good governance of forests.

This document presents the draft “GFI Framework” and includes a complete set of qualitative
indicators for conducting civil society led assessments of forest governance at the national level. We
wish to emphasize that this is a DRAFT methodology and living document, which will be revised and
adjusted throughout the pilot assessment process.